Orisanmi Burton

Orisanmi Burton is Associate Professor of Anthropology at American University. His research employs ethnographic and archival methods to examine historical collisions between Black radical organizations and state repression in the United States. Dr. Burton received his BA in interdisciplinary social inquiry from Hampshire College, an MA in library and information science from Long Island University, and a PhD in sociocultural anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Burton’s work has been published in North American Dialogue, The Black Scholar, Radical History Review, and American Anthropologist among other outlets, and has received support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and The Margarite Casey Foundation, which selected him as a 2021 Freedom Scholar. Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt is his first book (University of California Press, 2023).